who’s
left from previous years’ doping scandals?

After the doping upheavals of 2006 and 2007, many
previous top names are nowhere to be seen - Ullrich, Basso, Landis,
Kashechkin, Mancebo, Heras, Contador, Kloden, Leipheimer, Vinokourov,
Moreni. With three weeks to go,
who is left to be the possible front-runners for the 2008 Yellow
Jersey?

so they could be in
with a good chance to win this year’s 3,500 kilometre race
and become the real successor to Lance
Armstrong. Of the seven, Cadel Evans showed himself with a
margin over the others taking part this year. Popvych, Astrarloza
and Pereiro are riding second-string in their teams, making the
top five in the list the most likely to appear on the leader board
when the Tour ends in Paris on 27 July.

green
is the new green

This
year, the Green Jersey - le Maillot Vert,
will have something special. The wearer will still have as much
energy and tactical sense to get hold of it, but its colour will
have changed.

So that this jersey will be
more visible in the peleton, the Green Jersey will be lighter,
in a shade exactly identical to that which it had at the moment
of its creation in 1953. The colour had been modified at the beginning
of the 1990s

Those ancient spectators that vibrated to the
blows given to pedals by Sean Kelly, Freddy Maertens, or André
Darrigade, will find again a familiar shade of green. The new
heroes racing to the finish line, Tom Boonen, Robbie McEwen or
Thor Hushovd, will not be slow to get a taste for this new old
colour.

The
2008 Tour de France

This year’s Tour de France
race starts from Brittany on 5th July, drops into Italy for a
couple of days’ cycling, and finishes on the Champs-Élysées,
Paris, after 21 days racing.

Note that stage 15 now starts from Embrun,
not Dignes-les-Bains. There was too great a risk of rock
falls in the climb up the Col de Larche on the original route.

this
year’s stages

There are 21 stages,
of which five are high mountain stages
[Alps 3, Pyrenees 2], four are medium
mountain stages and two are individual
against-the-clock [contre-le-montre] time trials.
There are 2 rest days.
All other days are ‘on the
plain’ - relatively flat days, almost touring
through France. The total distance ridden will be about 3,500
kilometres, or roughly 1,900 miles.

22
July 2008, after the sixteenth stage -from Cuneo, Italy to Jausiers,
France

After a tourist trip in Italy, we are now back in
France and headed towards Paris.

Saving catastrophes and
Herculean performances, Cadel Evans still has the Tour well under
control. There are only five left in any sort of conntention:
in order, Frank Schleck, Berhard Kohl - seven seconds back, Cadel
Evans - eight seconds behind Schleck, Carlos Sastre - forty-nine
seconds in arrears, and Denis Menchov at 1 minute 13 seconds.

None
of these four can have much hope against Cadel Evans on the time
trial [contre le montre], scheduled for the penultimate
stage [26 July, 53 km]. It is very likely that Evans will then
take at least a minute or two out of all these riders.

Kim
Kirchen, at seventh, is only 3 minutes 23 back, but one of the
very few who could use the time trial to pull back time from Evans.

In
historical terms, this Tour is very close with only just over
five minutes separating the first ten riders.

However, all
is not over yet. Tomorrow, 23 July, the seventeenth stage - 210
km from Embrun to L’Alpe-d’Huez, is an unusually horrific
challenge, even for the Tour de France, complete with with three
HC climbs [HC: hors classification; unclassified, because
they are simply ridiculous]. Evans did give a hint of weakness
on stage fifteen; thus, tomorrow must remain the last chance for
the top riders to challenge, or even crack, him - a task that
will require optimism as well as bionic strength. After all, today’s
sixteenth stage was hard enough and Evans just treated it as a
walk in the park.

17
July 2008, after the twelfth stage - Lavelanet to Narbonne

The
remarkable dominance of English-speaking cyclists on the world
stage is becoming impressive. After seven years of complete dominance
by the American Lance Armstrong; Mark Cavendish (COL) has now
won his third stage in the 2008 Tour de France -
the first time this has been done by a British rider. His
dominance in finishing melee sprints is currently looking overwhelming.

Meanwhile, Cadel Evans of Australia (SIL), although having
an overall lead of just one second, looks set to dominate the
podium in Paris. Despite a nasty crash, leaving him the worse
for wear, he is maintaining his lead and putting real margins
between himself and rivals. Evans has impressively tremendous
strength in both climbing stages and contre le montre.

The
rider immediately behind Evans, Frank Schleck - the CSC rider
from Luxembourg, dropped over a minute to Evans in the fourth
stage, 29.5km, Cholet time trial. With the twentieth stage, 53
km time trial [26 July] between Cérilly and Saint-Amand-Montrond
still to come, saving more hiccups, the Australian looks home
and dry to me.

And this all after British cyclists took
nine gold medals at the world track cycling championships last
March.

this
year’s longest stage - british winner!

Twenty-two
year old Mark Cavendish from the Isle of Man, riding for High
Road/Columbia, cycled to victory after 232 kilometres - the longest
stage in this year’s Tour de France.

Giant yellow
ant at Rond-point de l’Europe, Descartes, finished just
in time for the Tour. The peleton races round the roundabout
with its ant sculpture by Michel Audiard

After five
warm-up stages, the top ten places are held by

1

SCHUMACHER
S.

Ger

GST

19h
32' 33"

2

KIRCHEN
K.

Neth

THR

00' 12"

3

MILLAR D.

UK

TSL

00' 12"

4

EVANS C.

Aus

SIL

00'
21"

5

CANCELLARA
F.

Swi

CSC

00' 33"

6

VANDEVELDE C.

USA

TSL

00'
37"

7

HINCAPIE
G.

USA

THR

00' 41"

8

LÖVKVIST T.

Nor

THR

00'
47"

9

NIBALI V.

Ita

LIQ

00'
58"

10

GUTIERREZ
J.

Spa

GCE

01' 01"

Schumacher
leads the overall classification by virtue of a surprise win in
the 29.5 km contre le montre (against the clock). Britain’s
David Miller came second. However, these two riders are not rated
as top climbers, and you cannot win the Tour without being a great
climber.

Thus, as you can see from the table above, Cadel
Evans and Christian Vandevelde (both of whom can climb) are already
moving into threatening positions. This as the Tour speeds towards
three days of ‘practice’ climbing around the Central
Massif. And then the real Tour starts in the
Pyrenees.

Note that the sixteen seconds advantage is
no minor problem. If Vandevelde hopes to finish in the Yellow
Jersey, he will have to seriously crack Evans in the hills, especially
with another time trial looming on the penultimate day [26 July].

As
the efforts to get drugs out of the Tour continue, Quickstep lost
their star sprinter, Tom Boonen (2007
Green Jersey), over a positive test for cocaine. Surprisingly,
strictly, this was not a cycle doping incident, but out he had
to go. Meanwhile, Schumacher also has a similar shadow over a
police stop regarding amphetamines, after a drink-driving arrest.
The Tour organisers are trying to argue that Boonen and Schumacher
incidents are somehow ‘different’, but no-one sentient
seems to be able to explain why.

After fighting for two
years, Floyd Landis
finally lost his last doping appeal, and Oscar Pereiro has been
declared the official winner of the 2006 Tour de France.